London!
I’m writing from London! 9/20/18 17:15. (Still planning on writing a packing post, just haven’t had time)
So far everything has gone nearly perfect. Our flight from Seattle to London Gatwick was delayed 40 minutes, but we found out before going to the airport, so that didn’t really matter. Upon arriving at Sea-Tac we made it to our boarding gate in probably 30-40 minutes, if that. There was no line to print our boarding passes, TSA line was short, and people didn’t have to take their shoes off (unless you were wearing steel toed extra-turf rainboots like me). Once our flight began boarding they herded us onto busses and over to our fairly new, very impressive, Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner. I’m not super into planes, but this thing was sweet. It had 9 people per row - 3 on the left, 3 on the right, and 3 in the middle with aisles on both sides of the middle row. This design made it possible for baggage to go in bins on BOTH sides of the middle row, plus the usual overhead bins on the left and right side of the plane. This means one whole extra bagging area that extends the length of the plane! Sorry, I just really thought that was cool. Usually they’re asking for volunteers to check bags, or people are struggling to make their bags fit after everyone else lazily threw their bags in crooked. On this full plane, all the overhead compartments closed with ease. The plane was also noticeably quieter than others, and the touchscreen on the seat backs had enough movies, games, and random filler to make a 9 hour and 15 minute flight a bit more bearable. The lighting was also nice, as they darkened the plane once it was dark out, and turned the lights back on as it got light outside. Despite not sleeping on the flight, I think my body was tricked well enough that I’ll be able to just skip that night of sleep and continue on without jet lag, but that remains to be seen.
Anyways, once we landed, getting through customs took some time. A woman in front of us in line dropped to the floor and vomited. I only include that because it might have been the worst part of the journey so far. Yeah, you read that right, the worst part has been somebody else throwing up. It didn’t even get on my shoes or anything, it was just kind of scary at first because people were yelling that they needed paramedics, but it was soon clear the woman was only motion sick or drunk or both. Long story short she was okay.
Once we navigated through customs we were quickly approached and sold 2 train tickets to Victoria station for 40 pounds total. I have no idea if the tickets were cheaper at the train counter but I was in a weird state of mind after sitting down for 10 hours. We hopped on the train and after 30 minutes on there and a 3 minute walk we made it to our hotel. Our room wasn’t ready but they let us drop our bags off with them. Unfortunately there wasn’t a good place to change shoes and stuff, so I explored the city wearing carhart pants and extra tuff rain boots. I looked like I was a worker on lunch break with my wife or something, but it wasn’t so bad.
We began by getting breakfast - traditional English breakfast for me, eggs Benedict for Tawnie. Then we just walked all over the place and saw Buckingham palace, Kensington gardens, and a bunch of other impressive statues and buildings. My favorite part was probably Hyde park. It was gigantic and had tons of birds! We took a lot of breaks sitting in the park and watching the swans react to the hordes of people walking by.
We made our way back to the hotel around 2:30. I picked up some fish and chips while Tawnie took a nap, which I immediately did as well after eating. We woke up around 9, and we’re hoping we’re going to be able to sleep through the night.
I’m having some technical difficulties. I’ll throw more pictures up later. Tomorrow we’ll be flying to Clermont-Ferrand, France, then train to our first hosts in Vernusse!
So far everything has gone nearly perfect. Our flight from Seattle to London Gatwick was delayed 40 minutes, but we found out before going to the airport, so that didn’t really matter. Upon arriving at Sea-Tac we made it to our boarding gate in probably 30-40 minutes, if that. There was no line to print our boarding passes, TSA line was short, and people didn’t have to take their shoes off (unless you were wearing steel toed extra-turf rainboots like me). Once our flight began boarding they herded us onto busses and over to our fairly new, very impressive, Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner. I’m not super into planes, but this thing was sweet. It had 9 people per row - 3 on the left, 3 on the right, and 3 in the middle with aisles on both sides of the middle row. This design made it possible for baggage to go in bins on BOTH sides of the middle row, plus the usual overhead bins on the left and right side of the plane. This means one whole extra bagging area that extends the length of the plane! Sorry, I just really thought that was cool. Usually they’re asking for volunteers to check bags, or people are struggling to make their bags fit after everyone else lazily threw their bags in crooked. On this full plane, all the overhead compartments closed with ease. The plane was also noticeably quieter than others, and the touchscreen on the seat backs had enough movies, games, and random filler to make a 9 hour and 15 minute flight a bit more bearable. The lighting was also nice, as they darkened the plane once it was dark out, and turned the lights back on as it got light outside. Despite not sleeping on the flight, I think my body was tricked well enough that I’ll be able to just skip that night of sleep and continue on without jet lag, but that remains to be seen.
Anyways, once we landed, getting through customs took some time. A woman in front of us in line dropped to the floor and vomited. I only include that because it might have been the worst part of the journey so far. Yeah, you read that right, the worst part has been somebody else throwing up. It didn’t even get on my shoes or anything, it was just kind of scary at first because people were yelling that they needed paramedics, but it was soon clear the woman was only motion sick or drunk or both. Long story short she was okay.
Once we navigated through customs we were quickly approached and sold 2 train tickets to Victoria station for 40 pounds total. I have no idea if the tickets were cheaper at the train counter but I was in a weird state of mind after sitting down for 10 hours. We hopped on the train and after 30 minutes on there and a 3 minute walk we made it to our hotel. Our room wasn’t ready but they let us drop our bags off with them. Unfortunately there wasn’t a good place to change shoes and stuff, so I explored the city wearing carhart pants and extra tuff rain boots. I looked like I was a worker on lunch break with my wife or something, but it wasn’t so bad.
We began by getting breakfast - traditional English breakfast for me, eggs Benedict for Tawnie. Then we just walked all over the place and saw Buckingham palace, Kensington gardens, and a bunch of other impressive statues and buildings. My favorite part was probably Hyde park. It was gigantic and had tons of birds! We took a lot of breaks sitting in the park and watching the swans react to the hordes of people walking by.
We made our way back to the hotel around 2:30. I picked up some fish and chips while Tawnie took a nap, which I immediately did as well after eating. We woke up around 9, and we’re hoping we’re going to be able to sleep through the night.
I’m having some technical difficulties. I’ll throw more pictures up later. Tomorrow we’ll be flying to Clermont-Ferrand, France, then train to our first hosts in Vernusse!
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